If we all pattern our behavior after the worst examples available to us then all is truly lost.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Russia Hammers Hillary

Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that further sanctions against with Iran about its nuclear program would be “counterproductive.”Good for Sergey.I can’t tell where Hillary thinks she’s going with her approach to Iran.From the sound of her rhetoric, you’d think she’s a neocon.

They refuse to cease their uranium refining activities because that right is guaranteed to them in the U.N. Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Their president says regrettable things on occasion.

We should have been in direct talks with Iran years ago.Hillary wants to keep “specific forms of pressure” on the table.

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, says “Iran is seen by Russia as much more rational and reliable than it is seen by the United States or Israel.”It might be fair to say Iran is more rational and reliable than the United States or Israel areNobody seriously thinks Iran will ever bomb anybody, which is a lot more than you can say for Israel and us.

President Obama’s decision to cancel the Bush administration’s plan to deploy missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic was a sound one.That system wouldn’t have worked against the sorts of decoys we expect to see deployed on ballistic missiles.More importantly, though, the Bush plan wasn’t really about protecting central Europe from Iran, it was about getting under the Russians’ skin.

We’ve developed a new bunker buster to deal with the uranium enrichment site at Qom.That’s the site we called “secret” after Iran had already revealed its existence.

Controversy lingers over Iran’s recent election; but it’s nothing compared to the contention regarding Afghanistan’s election.Gen. Stanley McChrystal says “rampant government corruption” in the Hamid Karzai regime has given the Taliban and al-Qaeda an edge in the war.

The assertion by the Bush administration that “we face no greater challenge from a single country than Iran” was a remarkable slice of bosh.The only threat Iran presents is its latent ability to close down the Strait of Hormuz and shut off the oil supply from the Persian Gulf, but if they ever do that we’d clean their clocks (and the rest of the world would cheer us on).

For that same reason, is not in Iran’s strategic interests to develop nuclear weapons.They would merely invite a massive preemptive strike from us and/or the Israelis that Iran would never recover from.

And yet the notion that Iran wants nukes persists.George C. Wilson recently wrote, “Iran seems hell bent on getting the Bomb,” but like everyone else who makes these assertions, Wilson offered no facts to back up his claims. “Even if Iran makes good on its promise to let International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors study its newly disclosed plant at Qom on Oct. 25 to convince world leaders it is pursuing nuclear energy, not the Bomb, hawks in this country, Israel and elsewhere will not believe it,” Wilson wrote.Great.So there’s nothing on earth Iran can do to convince people they don’t want the Bomb, so we may as well just do what, George?Let Israel fly over Iraq and do a smithereens number on Iran?

We hear “show of weakness” talk from the war crowd whenever someone like Obama (i.e., a Democrat) opts to take a soft approach to international relations.“Appeasement” gets thrown around like a broken sack of flour, but one appeases folks more powerful than they are.We are history’s mightiest nation.We no longer have a peer competitor and we likely never will again.Iran is puny.

The sanction talk sounds foolish.We have, at long last, suspended the ludicrous “zero option” precondition to direct talks with Iran (we won’t talk to you until you suspend your right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes).One suspects that Clinton is looking for a bargaining chip to force Iran into accepting total and permanent transparency of its nuclear program.Nice idea, I suppose, but she, as well as Defense Secretary Robert Gates (who’s in charge of our foreign policy, anyway?) have been screaming sanctions from the rooftops since Obama came into office, China and Russia have consistently refused to play ball, and we can’t get UN sanctions imposed without their support in the Security Council.

Everyone would do well to get mum about Iran.We can probably get what we want from them by offering a carrot or two, and we can also probably open up a new market for American businesses.Our human intelligence on Iran is atrocious.That will never improve significantly until we normalize relationships and have an embassy in Tehran.

We’ll have to give the Iranians some sort of security guarantees.If they spread their legs for us, they’ll want us to assure them we won’t let Israel come along and give them a swift kick.

We can work something out.I just hope Hillary doesn’t get too hands on in the negotiations.

7 comments:

And what is Obama's role in the production of this belicosity, sir, simply that of a passive observer as you would seem to suggest here and in other of your writing? Your account of the Bush years has responsibility squarely where it belongs: On Bush. But with the transition to the Obama Administration its Gates and Clinton that are viewed as the warmongers, never Obama. Its all going on without his knowledge or approval somehow. This vision is just the worst sort of naivete. It reminds one of the incredulity of the victims of the Purge Trials of 1936-39 in the Soviet Union when it was heard routinely from them that if Stalin knew what was happening, about their internment, torture and interrogation, that he'd put an end to it immediately! Read Obama's public statements about how he regards the "threat" from Iran and come back and tell me that its Clinton and Gates that are the ones providing the agitprop.

A few days ago, Hillary Clinton said that she plans to retire after the next round of elections. The poor dear is tired after threatening just about everyone she comes across. When I hear her voice on the news, that petulant oh-so-patient whining, I skip to the next item. (Thanks to the technology gods for podcasting.)

She could retire early, I suppose, but that would mean 24/7 with Bill.

Stopping the Star Wars money pits in Czech Republic (maybe in the country they will replace the Borsh with Happy Meals) and Poland was good business on Obama's part. Reduced the waste of borrowed Social Security funds.

Star Wars is not as real as the 1977 movie.

The thing could hardly provide point defenses. No better than Safeguard in North Dakota could in the 1960's.

Reagan bought it after watching some TV movie where a US president had to deal with an accidental ICBM launch which took out a US city.

Reagan bought into Star Wars so that a US president would not have to nuke Archangelsk after an accidental Soviet strike took out Chicago.

Nothing from the National Missile Defense gold plated puzzle palaces can stop even one old Scud if it were under the flight path.

The Persian nuclear program is making way for the post hydrocarbon world where the oil producers need energy self sufficiency and a new line other than selling crude oil.

The Saudis are floating an idea to get diversified with western capital as they have squandered theirs in Paris and London.

Te Iranians are stealing a march on the post oil world and it embarrasses the US that they will be ahead of the Saudi royals.

So why let the Islamic republic we hate be ahead of the Islamic monarchy we have been kissing up to?

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (retired) was a naval flight officer who commanded an aircraft squadron and was operations officer of USS Theodore Roosevelt, the carrier that fought the Kosovo War. He earned a master-of-arts degree in post-modern imperialism at the U.S. Naval War College where many of his essays became required student reading. Jeff’s weekly satires on U.S. foreign policy high jinks appear at Antiwar.com and his critically applauded novel Bathtub Admirals (Kunati Books), a lampoon on America's rise to global dominance, is on sale now. Jeff lives with dogs in a house by the beach on Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, and in the summer he has a nice tan.